48 NORTH SEA FISHERS AND FIGHTERS 



Barking and the Thames were very intimately 

 associated with the early days of trawling, but little has 

 been learned of the position which the town held as 

 a fishing port a century and a half ago. At the be- 

 ginning of the nineteenth century, however, Barking, 

 Greenwich, and Gravesend were building welled- 

 smacks, to share in the North Sea fishing, and in 1852 

 Barking had no fewer than 1 34 trawlers and 46 smacks 

 engaged in lining for cod and haddock. Twenty-five 

 years later Barking had ceased to be reckoned as a 

 fishing port. 



Barking and Brixham claim the renown of origin- 

 ating deep-sea trawling. There has been much con- 

 troversy on the point, which has never been satisfactorily 

 settled, nor is it likely to be. Brixham and Barking 

 trawlers were certainly amongst the very first to adopt 

 this form of fishing, and their bluff, stout little smacks were 

 numbered with the first of the reapers of the Dogger. 



The early trawler was a vessel of from 30 to 50 

 tons, carrying six or seven hands, men and boys. 

 These were paid by wages, the skipper having five per 

 cent, of the earnings. As a rule, the smacks did not go 

 so far north as the Dogger, but fished on the south 

 edge of it, and about Botney Gut, 80 miles from 

 Yarmouth. They trawled at a depth of from 18 to 

 23 fathoms, the greatest depth being 40 fathoms, 

 at the Silver Pit, and an average good day's fishing 

 was a ton per smack. In calm weather the vessels got 

 but little fish ; a fair catch in a smart breeze, and in 

 a gale nothing. The trawlers remained out for six 

 weeks, though the Barking smacks were at sea for two 

 months together. 



